“Well! You are back, at last, are you? I didn’t know but what you’d run away. You may come along with me to-night. You may try and see your friends. The provision train I am to take in will get out again about daylight. You may stay there one day, and come away with a train that will run in to-morrow night, but you’d better wear your Mexican rig, if you don’t mean to have your throat cut.”
“All right, sir,” said Ned. “I’ll run the risk.”
“I might not let you,” said Grant, “if you were an enlisted man, but you may learn something of value to them and to us, too. Get ready!”
The fact was that Ned and his army, commanded for him by General Scott, were in a somewhat peculiar position. An armistice had been declared while the negotiations were going on, and while, at the same time, the power of Santa Anna was crumbling to pieces under him. It had been agreed, on both sides, that all military operations should temporarily cease, and that American army-trains of wagons might come into the city, with armed escorts, to obtain supplies. After some unpleasant experiences with the angry mob of the city, it had been deemed best that the trains should come and go in the night, when the unruly Mexican soldiers were in their quarters, and the too patriotic citizens were in their beds. Ned had several times asked permission to accompany a train, and it had been refused, but it was now explained that this train would like to have one more man with it who could talk Spanish. When, however, an hour or so later, he reported for duty, Lieutenant Grant remarked to him:
“Well, yes, you can talk it and you can look it, but you can’t walk it. Don’t step off so lively, if you mean to pass for a Mexican.”
“Hold on, Grant,” said another officer, standing near them. “Don’t you think the Mexicans have been lively enough since we left Perote? I’ve had to step around a good deal myself on their account.”
“Just so,” said Grant. “But that’s while they’re fighting. When they’re at anything like work, though, it’s a different kind of movement. Don’t walk fast, Ned, or they’ll shoot you for a gringo.”
It was nearly midnight when the supply-train, commanded by Lieutenant Grant, entered the city, and an hour was consumed in obtaining the supplies and getting them into the wagons, for not a pound of anything had been made ready for delivery. No true-hearted Mexican really wished to sell provisions to the enemies of his country.
“Lieutenant, may I go now?” asked Ned, as the last wagon prepared to move away. “There isn’t a patrol in sight, and the Paez place is within a few squares from this.”
Grant replied only by a wave of the hand, for at that moment he had become engaged in a sharp controversy with the one Mexican officer who was present on duty for his own side. He had been fairly polite, but he had not pretended to be pleased to see gringos in Mexico. Therefore, it was almost without express permission that Ned slipped away from his train and his escort upon his exceedingly perilous errand.